Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Near field communication (NFC) may establish radio communication between two or more communication devices that are in close proximity. NFC standards may cover communications protocols and data exchange formats, and may be based on existing radio-frequency identification (RFID) standards. NFC may build upon RFID systems by allowing two-way communication between endpoints. Present applications may include contactless transactions, data exchange, and simplified setup of more complex communications, such as Wi-Fi.
Near Field Communication (NFC) may be vulnerable to an array of attacks ranging from malicious URI spoofing to denial of service. Many attacks may be similar to those that exist on the Web. In addition, NFC often relies on proximity as an ad-hoc authentication mechanism and a way to establish trust between two NFC exchange partners. The man-in-the-middle attack may be prevalent in the usage case. The NFC protocol does not address the issue beyond the assumption that NFC uses low-power transmission that may only be received from a very short distance. However, an attacker may use high gain antennae or a high power transmitter that can transmit and receive signals at a greater distance, allowing the attacker, located a further distance away, to intercept communication between two legitimate NFC exchange partners, steal sensitive information and inject malicious data.